FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT IRELAND - PAGE 5

He was the last person, say friends of Robert Drake, that you would expect such tragedy to strike. "There is a very bright kind of energy about him," says one. "That's what makes this news really hard to take. " "This news" is that Drake, the renowned author and editor of gay literature who had been living in Philadelphia for three years, was brutally beaten in his home in Ireland, where he moved last summer to work on a novel. Two men were arrested last week in the Jan. 30 attack in the small town of Sligo.

In 1928, Frank Algeo, then a lad of 21, left his home in the Irish county of Donegal, boarded a ship in County Derry and sailed to Philadelphia. In 1958, Nora Campbell, then 14, left her home in Donegal, boarded a plane in County Clare and flew to Philadelphia. And today, in 1988, Campbell and Algeo are among the thousands in the Philadelphia area who can trace their heritage to Donegal, Ireland's most northwest county. On Saturday and Sunday, they and hundreds more of Donegal's sons and daughters - and certainly some cousins from other counties - will gather at St. Joseph's University to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Donegal Society of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania's oldest Irish county society and one of the oldest in the nation.

If the United States plays defense in the World Cup the way it did last night, the Americans are in for a short trip. Ireland got around U.S. defenders to score a pair of goals and defeated the Americans, 2-1, in Dublin, Ireland. Mark Kinsella got past Gregg Berhalter to score in the seventh minute as the soccer game at Lansdowne Road began in pouring rain. Eddie Pope tied it for the United States in the 34th minute, but Ireland scored the winning goal in the 84th when Gary Doherty outjumped defender Tony Sanneh and beat goalkeeper Kasey Keller.

T-shirts reading "Richmond, Doylestown, Dublin" should be popular with the Dooley family. Bill Dooley has resigned, after two seasons as the Delaware Valley College men's basketball coach, because his wife, Clare, has been transferred to Ireland, where she will guide GMAC Financial Services' commercial mortgage program in Europe. Dooley, who previously coached the University of Richmond men's team, moved to the area with his wife and two children when Clare was assigned to GMAC's offices in Horsham, Pa. Dooley, 39, reluctantly leaves Del Val. "The timing isn't perfect, because I've really enjoyed being at Del Val," he said.

More than 100,000 people of Irish descent - many of them from the United States - are expected to converge in early June in County Cork, Ireland, for the Great Irish Famine Event, part of that nation's 150th anniversary famine observances. Organizers say the event, set for June 1 in Millstreet, will be the biggest gathering ever of descendants of Irish emigrants. Most will come from the United States, Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand. By some estimates, more than two million Irish people died or emigrated from 1845 to 1850 during a time of economic collapse and failure of the potato crop.

Irish Country Cooking by Malachi McCormick (Clarkson N. Potter, $16.95) - published this week, coinciding with St. Patrick's Day - is a savory tribute to the kitchen-fire warmth and hospitality of the traditional Irish kitchen. In the book, McCormick, who grew up in County Cork, explores the food wonders of Irish festivals and feast days, and the everyday dishes of working people. He also examines the wondrous folklore and food evolution of Ireland. A pre-Christian recipe for boiled mutton goes back 400 years before the arrival of St. Patrick.

Irish celebrity chef Clodagh McKenna has fond memories of celebrating St. Patrick's Day while she was growing up in County Cork. "We would be looking forward to it for weeks," she said in a phone interview from Dublin. "In school, we would be studying the history of Ireland, making Irish flags, then on the day before, we would make brooches with fresh shamrocks, blessed by the priest, and tied with a white ribbon," she said. On St. Patrick's Day, she and her sisters would put on their best dresses for Mass with the family.

Desmond J. Murtagh, 38, of Lafayette Hill and County Cavan, Ireland, died June 6 of a heart attack in Cavan Town, where he had lived since 2001. The youngest of 12 children, Mr. Murtagh graduated from the Comprehensive School in Cootehill, County Cavan, in 1989. He worked for a year as a carpenter before immigrating to the United States at age 20. Mr. Murtagh lived in Lafayette Hill for 10 years starting in 1991. Initially, he worked with brothers Paul, Raymond, Gerry, and Phillip for their construction company, Murtagh Bros.

SLIGO, Ireland - "The landscape isn't, strictly speaking, necessary," said Helen Vendler of Harvard University. She has written about and teaches about Nobel Prize-winning Irish poet William Butler Yeats and other great writers and had some advice about the presumed pleasure of combining place with poetry - a lure to which all too many literary junkies fall prey. My librarian wife and I knew the wordy part about Ireland fairly well, and where to find some of its low-land temples.

It's official. Penn State will open the 2014 season against Central Florida in Dublin, Ireland. The formal announcement came Sunday in Dublin. The Nittany Lions will play the first international game in their 127-year football history on Aug. 30, 2014, against the Knights at the city's Croke Park, the headquarters of Ireland's Gaelic Athletic Association. Penn State athletic director Dave Joyner and UCF coach George O'Leary were in Ireland for the announcement at halftime of the Leinster Senior Football Championship final between Dublin and Meath.